Andrew Norlen - When the Lights Are Bright Again: Letters and images of loss, hope, and resilience from the theater community

WHEN

THE

LIGHTS

ARE

BRIGHT

AGAIN

An imprint of Globe Pequot, the trade division of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Blvd., Ste. 200
Lanham, MD 20706
ApplauseBooks.com

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2021 by Andrew Norlen and Matthew Murphy

Cover and book design by Asya Blue Design

Photo Retouching: Evan Zimmerman

whenthelightsarebrightagain.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

ISBN 978-1-4930-6659-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4930-6660-5 (e-book)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992

for the ones we lost,

for the hope we fight for,

for the resilience in each of us.

for Nick Cordero.

by Andrew Norlen

It is October, 2020. I am 2,881 miles away from my city, my job, my home, my career, my chosen family, and above all elsemy dream.

We are now eight months into a global pandemic, ravaged by a virus that has no political or economic biasnothis virus will affect you whether you believe in it or not.

I am back in my roots, deep inside my roots. Living within the four walls that held a deep and painful secret for all of my adolescence, until I left the nest and headed East. There, I was able to grow up and discover the me I wished to be inside this collective weve named life.

This house holds my secrets, or it used to, I should say. But now, eight months into this new normal called Covid-19, I think I am starting to unlearn parts of my strength that Ive grown up, and into, during my twenties back East. I dont like this. I dont like feeling this regression. I dont like feeling out of control, not that I ever had any before the virus, but the illusion was comforting. Maybe.

As I sit down to dinner tonight with my parents, Ive started to finally see them as fully human. No more heroic pedestal: they are simply imperfect, fallible, broken, beautiful, and complicated adultsjust like me. Its as if Ive watched the perfect parents of my mind vanish to reveal two people, who are so much more like me than I ever realized as a child.

As we begin to eat the meal my mom has prepared, I feel my anxiety welling up within me. It sits at the top of my throat, shaking, angry, fearful, and overwhelmed. Whats wrong bud? My dad asks, as they both sit with my aggressive and pulsating energy. And then my rant releases itself unto our table:

I just hate this! All of it! I dont know what to do with myself! I miss dancing, but I dont want to take a class online cause it hurts too much, and its not the same. I feel so much guilt for not reaching out to my friends and engaging to see what they are up to, something keeps stopping me. I am so tired of listening to everyone and their mother say, Whats your plan Andrew? What are you going to do when you can get back to the city? I cant stand how the world just sees artists as disposable, telling us to pivot and change professions and career paths, like that choice is as easy as picking out an ice cream flavor or something? Its infuriating. Im drowning in student loans that Im going to be paying off till the day I die, and the world thinks that my profession is laughable and so easily remedied. When does all of the hard work get to feel worth it? I wish I had a person to share this difficult time with. At this point Im convinced that I will always be alone. And even as I say that out loud, I feel so selfish and ridiculous and guilty, because people are dying in the world, and who am I to complain?! I have a roof over my head, and food on the table. I dont know. I guess I just feel like I have no purpose. And I hate that so much of who I am is wrapped up in what I do.

The next morning I FaceTime my best friend Kenna. As I begin to tell her about my embarrassing rant with my parents over dinner last night, which essentially is now just a rerun episode of that same rant, but louder, with a mask on, and on a stair-climber at the gym down the street. She interrupts me

Bubba, why dont you write it down? You write everything else down! She says,

I pause. Filled with chills head to toe.

Like, what if you wrote a letter to yourself ? Or like, a letter to the industry? About what you miss. Like when we write an email that we never send, but it just feels good to speak it out. You know?

Again, full chills. These werent nerves, they werent fear, and they werent apprehension. As she speaks I have a moment of alignment inside me, but I dont yet know what it means.

Shit. I love that! I blurt out. I gotta go! Ill call you tomorrow.

I hang up and my wheels start spinning. The ideas wont stop flowing. My mind races for a solid 48 hours and I dont sleep a wink. I have 10+ ideas for a title, but one keeps sticking out..When The Lights Are Bright Again. Every time I say it out loud, or read it, I get that feeling again, the same chills from before. The more I think about this idea of writing down how I feel, the more I keep thinking to myself

I need to do this. Waitwe all need to do this.

___________

And just like that, this book became a reality before it was ever anything physical. In one moment I made a choice inside and I remember thinking: If I do this right, this could change the world. That thought still gives me the same effervescent goosebumps todayeven as I write thisthat it gave me the day I created the book inside my dreams. I had no idea what this book would look like, but in the fraction of an instant I found purpose. My purpose was to give everyone who wanted a space to rant, rage, grieve, lament, praise, rejoice or exclaim that same space, that platform, the same way that my best friend Kenna had just given me permission to release. I wasnt willing to stop until I created that space for everyone.

The ironic thing was I became so invested in the creation of this book that I continued to put off writing my own letter. I worked on the book for almost six months before I ever wrote a word or thought about writing my own letter at all. Sure, I had found a purpose inside of this idea, but I instead chose to silence and pivot my focus onto the task of creating, instead of the actual act of creating from within myself. For myself.

The Actors Fund was fresh in my mind after a friend shared with me that they had helped him pay his bills for two or three months during the summer of 2020. This amazed me, and I did some digging and got in contact with Douglas Ramirez at TAF. I will never forget our first phone call, when I pitched the book idea to him and he said, Andrew Im so sorry to interrupt you, but I have chills and Im wiping tears from my eyes. I have heard a LOT of ideas for fundraisers all year, but nothing like this. This is special. The book was leading the chargeI was not.